1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of coin operated vending machines and more specifically relates to a coin selecting funnel for use in such machines for receiving coins inserted into the machine through a slot, for routing coins larger than a certain diameter into a coin chute and for routing coins smaller than that certain diameter into a coin return passage.
2. The Prior Art
The present invention is an improvement over the funnel described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,062,435 issued Dec. 13, 1977 to Chalabian, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In that patent, there is shown and described a coin funnel which is provided with a plurality of apertures so that if moisture should get into the machine it will not be funneled into the coin chute but instead will fall through the apertures to the bottom of the machine where it will do no damage. The apertures advantageously reduce the area of contact between the coin and the funnel so that if a wet coin is inserted into the machine, the surface tension between the coin and the funnel will be significantly reduced thereby keeping the wet coin from sticking in the funnel. Also, as the coins cross the apertures in the wall of the funnel, water will tend to be stripped from the coins as they pass over the edges of the apertures, so that a large part of the water will be stripped from the coins and the coins will be less wet by the time they reach the coin chute.
Although the design of the funnel of the present invention gives it a superior capability for operation with wet coins, the coin selecting funnel of the present invention is designed to cope with a different problem.
The type of coin operated vending apparatus in which the present invention is used is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,330 issued May 20, 1975 to Chalabian and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In that patent, there is described a coin operated vending machine in which the inserted coins stack up edge-to-edge tangentially within a coin chute; the height of the stack of coins equaling the sum of the diameters of the coins. Normally, there are two coin chutes, one for dimes, and the other receiving nickels and quarters. In practice, a few customers inadvertently insert dimes or pennies into the slot reserved for nickels and quarters. The erroneous coins and any other foreign matter inserted into the slots will be rejected and returned to the customer when he attempts to open the door of the machine, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,330. However, it has been observed that a certain number of pennies, when stacked in the chute reach a height sufficiently close to the height reached by a different number of quarters, so that the machine can be operated by pennies rather than by quarters. Because the knowledge of this circumstance is relatively easily obtained, a countermeasure must be built into the machine. The present invention thus is a countermeasure to prevent the customers from defeating the machine by inserting pennies instead of quarters.